Since I haven't had time to write anything lately, instead I'm posting links to a whole lot of interesting articles about space and astronomy from the past month or so, ranging from stories about new discoveries on Mars, the ESA's comet probe, and the NASA probes approaching Pluto and Ceres to ones about extrasolar planet discoveries, speculations about alien life, and one of my favorites, a new idea about sending people to live in a floating city in the atmosphere of Venus, far above the inhospitable surface.
Mars:
http://news.yahoo.com/found-ancient-lake-mars-sign-143002982.html
http://news.yahoo.com/curiosity-rover-drills-mars-rock-finds-water-122321635.html
http://www.space.com/28019-mars-methane-disovery-curiosity-rover.html
http://www.space.com/28033-mars-life-building-blocks-curiosity-rover.html?cmpid=558746
http://www.cnet.com/news/curiosity-has-discovered-organic-matter-on-mars/#ftag=YHF65cbda0
Comet:
http://news.yahoo.com/european-comet-lander-may-wake-space-slumber-232545821.html
Pluto and Ceres:
http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-s-new-horizons-mission-to-pluto-to-illuminate-mysterious-reaches-of-solar-system-151951810.html
http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-spacecraft-almost-pluto-smile-camera-153919436.html
http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-finds-mysterious-bright-spot-dwarf-planet-ceres-191633834.html
Extrasolar planets:
http://news.yahoo.com/planets-odd-mercury-orbits-could-host-life-053306188.html
http://www.vox.com/2015/1/2/7474501/exoplanet-simulator
http://www.space.com/28185-rocky-alien-planets-habitable-zone.html?cmpid=558939
http://news.yahoo.com/mars-rover-photos-show-potential-signs-ancient-life-210713579.html
http://news.yahoo.com/astronomers-oldest-known-star-earth-planets-191903312.html
http://news.yahoo.com/faraway-planet-lord-rings-152706151.html
Alien life:
http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-think-well-signs-aliens-152001079.html
http://news.yahoo.com/did-life-become-complex-could-happen-beyond-earth-124952260.html
Floating city on Venus:
http://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-wants-to-build-a-floating-city-above-the-clouds-of-venus/
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Current Events: Charlie Hebdo, Sri Lanka, US-Cuba Relations, and Boko Haram
The dominant story in the last couple of weeks has been the attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris by extremist gunmen who killed a dozen people, including many of the paper's staff, and its repercussions. There were discussions about the exact affiliations of the gunmen, though I think it's as likely as not that they, like so many radicals, didn't necessarily have any clear affiliations and may well have acted on their own. But if they were encouraged in their plans by any of the larger extremist organizations, one plausible motivation might be that the latter want to deliberately stir up an anti-Muslim backlash which would in turn help them recruit more followers. Whether or not the attacks were part of such a plan, there unfortunately has been some backlash against Muslims in Europe. There were also stupid comments by Islamophobes like Rupert Murdoch, who actually said that Muslims in general should be held responsible for the extremists in their midst, an assertion that was cleverly mocked by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who wondered if she should be held responsible for the Spanish Inquisition and...Rupert Murdoch. In the same vein, I might also point out that no one seems to think Christians should be held responsible for people like Joseph Kony or Andreas Breivick. Of course, there were the usual calls for Muslims to condemn the attacks, ignoring the fact that very large numbers of them did so. This constant insistence that Muslims have an obligation to condemn all acts by Islamic extremists was satirized cleverly in a column on the Independent's website. There were also some hilarious responses to the absurd claims of an "expert" on Fox that the English city of Birmingham is now entirely Muslim. Even aside from claims based on complete falsehoods, the idea that a minority of extremists should be seen as representative of all Muslims is as ridiculous as saying that Christian extremists like the homophobic Westboro Baptist Church fanatics represent all Christians. As for the idea that Islam is inherently a violent religion, while there are some parts of the Quran that can be (mis)used to support violent extremism, the same is true of the Bible, which among other things has appalling stories of genocide committed in the name of God.
The attacks have also led to debates on the limits of free expression, and more narrowly on whether Charlie Hebdo in specific might have sometimes indulged in racism or sided against the weak (though this article is rather lacking in specific examples of how the magazine did the latter), or whether any apparent racism was in fact mocking racism in a way that non-French speakers can't easily appreciate due to the many layered nature of the satire, much like the way Randy Newman's song "Rednecks" mocks both Southern racists and Northern hypocrites. While it's hard for me to judge, I would suspect that the cartoonists did occasionally overstep the bounds of good taste and perhaps occasionally took a regrettable position on an issue, they also had a lot of thought-provoking cartoons that attacked the establishment. But however we view Charlie Hebdo in particular, the larger questions is whether there should be limits on this type of free expression.
In this regard, I will say that in general I side with those who support free expression, even when it's occasionally distasteful. I do think personal insults that cross the line into slander or any obvious hate speech should face some form of restriction, but mocking religious beliefs should always be allowed. On this point I disagree with Pope Francis, who I generally agree with more often than I would ever expected to agree with a pope. As this cartoon of Jesus and Mohammed amusingly points out, mockery of a religious figure is different from mockery of an ordinary person, as they represent ideas and beliefs. Frankly, if your beliefs can't stand up to mockery, then maybe there's something wrong with them. I would agree that the mockery should ideally have some sort of point, rather than being gratuitously provocative, but even in the latter case I would not in most cases support censoring it. The truth is, my instinctive reaction to this kind of act by religious extremists (of any religion) is to do exactly what they don't want me to do and start mocking their religions (or maybe all religions, since I prefer to be an equal opportunity mocker). I may not actually start doing so, but that's as much because I have too many other things I want to write about and not much time to do it as because I worry about hurting anyone's feelings.
In any case, while I consider the attempts by Islamophobes in the West to paint all Muslims as extremists due to the actions of few to be reprehensible, I must also add that the reaction of some Muslims to any kind of Mohammed cartoons is likewise over the top. While many Muslims have been upset by the widespread distribution of the post-attack issue of Charlie Hebdo and its cover with a cartoon of Mohammed, with the increasingly authoritarian Turkish government moving to censor it and violent protests breaking out elsewhere, this reaction makes no sense to me. I can perhaps understand them getting upset at some of Charlie Hebdo's past cartoons of Mohammed, like the one where he is posing naked for a camera, as that seems to fall under the gratuitously provocative category I referred to (I should note that Charlie Hebdo has also published cartoons targeting Christianity's sacred figures, such as the one where the Trinity is having a threesome). But the one on the new issue isn't even obviously mocking Mohammed. Instead, it seems that some Muslims are upset that Mohammed is being portrayed at all. But there is no basis in the Quran for ban on portraying Mohammed in particular, though there are verses against images in general, clearly aimed at discouraging idolatry. Indeed, having special standards for Mohammed could be seen as a form of idolatry itself, as it treats him as something beyond an ordinary human. Interestingly, depictions of Mohammed, including pictorial ones, have been made by Muslims throughout history and are not unknown even today in places such as Iran (as the Shiites take a more relaxed view on this issue than orthodox Sunnis). In any case, even if it was clear that their religion forbade Muslims from depicting Mohammed, there's no reason this prohibition should apply to non-Muslims. If anything, that's a discussion I would like to see Muslims engaging in, not one about condemning violence which most of them have condemned repeatedly already.
In other news, I was very pleased to see Mahinda Rajapaksa lose his bid for reelection as president of Sri Lanka, as he was horrible on many levels. He tried to turn the country into his family's private domain by accumulating autocratic powers for himself, putting his brothers in charge of important ministries, and changing the constitution to allow him to run again. He presided over terrible violations of human rights, not only in his war against the Tamil Tigers but also among dissidents in the country (incidentally, it was the warmongering support of some groups of Buddhist monks for Rajapaksa and his war on the Tamils back when he rose to prominence that led me to realize that there are nasty, violent Buddhists just as there are nasty, violent Christians and Muslims, long before the attacks by Buddhists on Muslims in Myanmar). He also was overly friendly with China. I was a bit surprised to see him accept defeat, but then maybe he didn't accept it as readily as it first seemed. In any event, I certainly hope the new president is able to put Sri Lanka on a better path.
Going back a little further, I was also pleased to see US President Barack Obama end the American diplomatic embargo against Cuba. While there is no question that Cuba is still an authoritarian state that suppresses free speech, it made no sense to continue a policy that clearly wasn't helping to fix things there. While the right wing and anti-Castro Cubans predictably attacked Obama's move as rewarding a dictatorship, these critics don't seem to have any objections to the US having ties with, say, China, which is at least as repressive as Cuba. They also don't complain about the US having allies like Saudi Arabia, which aside from conducting public executions in questionable cases, goes so far as to sentence a blogger to 10 years in prison and a 1000 lashes just for expressing himself online.
In Nigeria, Boko Haram has continued their attempts to claim the title of the most horrible armed group in the world by committing atrocities even more terrible than their previous ones. Unfortunately, the Nigerian government hasn't done much about it, and the Nigerian military is still far from clean of human rights violations itself. Some have even suggested that Nigerian President Goodluck Johnathan is deliberately allowing Boko Haram to run amok because it will make it easier for him to win reelection (since voting will be disrupted in the north, where Boko Haram is active, and most of his support comes from the south). In any case, strong pressure needs to be applied to do something for the people suffering from Boko Haram's depredations.
The attacks have also led to debates on the limits of free expression, and more narrowly on whether Charlie Hebdo in specific might have sometimes indulged in racism or sided against the weak (though this article is rather lacking in specific examples of how the magazine did the latter), or whether any apparent racism was in fact mocking racism in a way that non-French speakers can't easily appreciate due to the many layered nature of the satire, much like the way Randy Newman's song "Rednecks" mocks both Southern racists and Northern hypocrites. While it's hard for me to judge, I would suspect that the cartoonists did occasionally overstep the bounds of good taste and perhaps occasionally took a regrettable position on an issue, they also had a lot of thought-provoking cartoons that attacked the establishment. But however we view Charlie Hebdo in particular, the larger questions is whether there should be limits on this type of free expression.
In this regard, I will say that in general I side with those who support free expression, even when it's occasionally distasteful. I do think personal insults that cross the line into slander or any obvious hate speech should face some form of restriction, but mocking religious beliefs should always be allowed. On this point I disagree with Pope Francis, who I generally agree with more often than I would ever expected to agree with a pope. As this cartoon of Jesus and Mohammed amusingly points out, mockery of a religious figure is different from mockery of an ordinary person, as they represent ideas and beliefs. Frankly, if your beliefs can't stand up to mockery, then maybe there's something wrong with them. I would agree that the mockery should ideally have some sort of point, rather than being gratuitously provocative, but even in the latter case I would not in most cases support censoring it. The truth is, my instinctive reaction to this kind of act by religious extremists (of any religion) is to do exactly what they don't want me to do and start mocking their religions (or maybe all religions, since I prefer to be an equal opportunity mocker). I may not actually start doing so, but that's as much because I have too many other things I want to write about and not much time to do it as because I worry about hurting anyone's feelings.
In any case, while I consider the attempts by Islamophobes in the West to paint all Muslims as extremists due to the actions of few to be reprehensible, I must also add that the reaction of some Muslims to any kind of Mohammed cartoons is likewise over the top. While many Muslims have been upset by the widespread distribution of the post-attack issue of Charlie Hebdo and its cover with a cartoon of Mohammed, with the increasingly authoritarian Turkish government moving to censor it and violent protests breaking out elsewhere, this reaction makes no sense to me. I can perhaps understand them getting upset at some of Charlie Hebdo's past cartoons of Mohammed, like the one where he is posing naked for a camera, as that seems to fall under the gratuitously provocative category I referred to (I should note that Charlie Hebdo has also published cartoons targeting Christianity's sacred figures, such as the one where the Trinity is having a threesome). But the one on the new issue isn't even obviously mocking Mohammed. Instead, it seems that some Muslims are upset that Mohammed is being portrayed at all. But there is no basis in the Quran for ban on portraying Mohammed in particular, though there are verses against images in general, clearly aimed at discouraging idolatry. Indeed, having special standards for Mohammed could be seen as a form of idolatry itself, as it treats him as something beyond an ordinary human. Interestingly, depictions of Mohammed, including pictorial ones, have been made by Muslims throughout history and are not unknown even today in places such as Iran (as the Shiites take a more relaxed view on this issue than orthodox Sunnis). In any case, even if it was clear that their religion forbade Muslims from depicting Mohammed, there's no reason this prohibition should apply to non-Muslims. If anything, that's a discussion I would like to see Muslims engaging in, not one about condemning violence which most of them have condemned repeatedly already.
In other news, I was very pleased to see Mahinda Rajapaksa lose his bid for reelection as president of Sri Lanka, as he was horrible on many levels. He tried to turn the country into his family's private domain by accumulating autocratic powers for himself, putting his brothers in charge of important ministries, and changing the constitution to allow him to run again. He presided over terrible violations of human rights, not only in his war against the Tamil Tigers but also among dissidents in the country (incidentally, it was the warmongering support of some groups of Buddhist monks for Rajapaksa and his war on the Tamils back when he rose to prominence that led me to realize that there are nasty, violent Buddhists just as there are nasty, violent Christians and Muslims, long before the attacks by Buddhists on Muslims in Myanmar). He also was overly friendly with China. I was a bit surprised to see him accept defeat, but then maybe he didn't accept it as readily as it first seemed. In any event, I certainly hope the new president is able to put Sri Lanka on a better path.
Going back a little further, I was also pleased to see US President Barack Obama end the American diplomatic embargo against Cuba. While there is no question that Cuba is still an authoritarian state that suppresses free speech, it made no sense to continue a policy that clearly wasn't helping to fix things there. While the right wing and anti-Castro Cubans predictably attacked Obama's move as rewarding a dictatorship, these critics don't seem to have any objections to the US having ties with, say, China, which is at least as repressive as Cuba. They also don't complain about the US having allies like Saudi Arabia, which aside from conducting public executions in questionable cases, goes so far as to sentence a blogger to 10 years in prison and a 1000 lashes just for expressing himself online.
In Nigeria, Boko Haram has continued their attempts to claim the title of the most horrible armed group in the world by committing atrocities even more terrible than their previous ones. Unfortunately, the Nigerian government hasn't done much about it, and the Nigerian military is still far from clean of human rights violations itself. Some have even suggested that Nigerian President Goodluck Johnathan is deliberately allowing Boko Haram to run amok because it will make it easier for him to win reelection (since voting will be disrupted in the north, where Boko Haram is active, and most of his support comes from the south). In any case, strong pressure needs to be applied to do something for the people suffering from Boko Haram's depredations.
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